The walk form Liligo to Khoburtse is a scramble up and down boulders - the walk from Paiju to Urdukas is the toughest part of the whole hike. Part of the way walked on a glacier with exposed ice for half an hour, which was quite a experience!

Khoburstse N 35, 42.970 E 76, 13.970
Altitude 3,844 meters

Rested an hour at Khoburtse, by which time all the group gathered there, then left at 9:30am after green tea and a paratha saved from breakfast.

The way to Urdukas winds up and down, over rocks and ice. Most parts of the Baltoro glacier are covered with rocks, sand, dirt, so you get a overall greyish look to the whole glacier - but the parts which are 'naked' are something else altogether. This part of the glacier is often exposed, the ice melting in the sun - making the hike tougher.

Me and Khizer took a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up walking up and down on white ice for an hour, a good distance parallel to the main path.

Met a Russian mountaineer heading back from the base camp, talked with him for a few minutes. A fellow mountaineer had died on K2 last year so a team of Russian mountaineers have gone this year to make a memorial for him. He said Pakistan is a lot more scenic than Nepal, and they're planning to head to Pakistan from now on, instead of their regular mountaineering haunts of Nepal and others. Asked him how much further ahead Urdukas was, and he gave a super precise answer, including the amount of declines and inclines left! He had a very nice mountaineering GPS watch, which told you just about everything possible. On a mountain walk the most important figure is the height you climb up and down, not the distance horizontally.

We reached Urdukas at 1:45pm - and after a super tough hike so far, the campsite literally made us sit down below and stare up at it in disbelief - the path winds up vertically a thousand feet up from the glacier! The Urudukas campsite is perched high up on the hillside, and the path is a killer.

Asad's knee was troubling him, so we decided to take another rest day at Urdukas.

Asad cooked Mashed aloo fried with onions and spices - very delicious! It was served with our staple food every day, daal and chawaal.

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You are reading Day 6: Liligo to Urdukas, an entry made on May 4, 2008 by Khalid Omar, part of the K2 Base Camp Hike travelogue.

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